


Maybe Enough

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Divergent - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexual Tobias Eaton, Canon Major Character Death, M/M, Tobias mourning Tris, just let this man be happy, post-Allegiant, soft sad boyfriends, writing this fic helped me cope with allegiant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 16:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11513238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Post-Allegiant, Tobias finds a new life with a man named Noah, who's faced his own fair share of trauma. Pain never really goes away, but it's easier to cope with when you have someone by your side who understands.





	Maybe Enough

Noah sits down next to me on the couch and wordlessly hands me a bowl of cereal. He wears a knitted brown sweater and dark sweatpants, and he pays careful attention to his cereal when he eats, as if he's inspecting every piece. When he looks up, the glare of the sunrise through the window panes reflects in his eyes.

Today is not a good day. I can tell already. Some days are good, and some are not, and the days that are not good for Noah are usually not good for me either. When I awoke, his side of the bed cold and bare. I was alone, and his muffled sobs came from the bathroom. I waited until his whimpers died down and then crept out of bed, opening the bathroom door, guiding an arm around his shoulders and leading him back to bed. There's a few more hours left until sunrise, so we don't have to be up yet. 

We technically don't have to be up by sunrise either, but I know on days like this it helps. It helps but it hurts, because he used to watch the sunset every day with him.  _ Him  _ is Noah’s old best friend, his old boyfriend- Ethan. He dreams of him once a week, just like I dream of Tris, sometimes on the same days. My dreams are usually memories or activities that we never got to do, like the first time I kissed her, or the first time I wished I did. I dream about Dauntless initiation a lot, but instead of teaching her she's standing beside me, holding my hand, smiling up at me in that way that only she could as we train new initiates. 

Noah’s dreams are not so pleasant. Ethan died in the Abnegation attack, and Noah watched it happen. There was nothing he could do in that moment as the gun went from being pointed at Ethan to pointed at him, so he ran until he was safe. Ethan held his hand but lost his grip when he was shot, and Noah kept running because he thought he was behind him. But a couple blocks away, he turned back and could just barely make out his body, cold and unmoving on the pavement. 

Noah gets flashbacks a lot. He wakes up in a cold sweat and cries until the tears have run out. He's grown used to it by now, and so have I, although it pains me to hear his cries, muffled as to not wake me up. He doesn't want me to comfort him in times like that, after most nightmares he just needs to be alone. He says he spends that time talking to Ethan, apologizing. I usually hear him. I'm always awake whenever his warmth leaves my side.

Now he sits beside me, his bowl empty but still propped in his hands. 

    “Sorry if I woke you up,” he says quietly, not moving, still not meeting my gaze.

    “It's okay,” I say. “Don’t worry about it.” I brush his leg with my hand, hoping not to startle him. Some days he is not good with being touched. Now, he softens just a little.

    “It was…it felt really real this time.”

    “I know how it can be,” I say, and I mean it. Last week I dreamt about the moment Cara had told me Tris had died, but as soon as she said that Tris walked out of the atrium, the last place I had seen her, as if nothing had ever happened. Christina stopped crying and her tears dried as if they were never there. We went to the cafeteria and drank grape soda out of glass bottles, and then I knew it was a dream because Tris never liked grape soda. Still, when she pressed her lips to my ear I felt it, and I woke up shaking. 

When I tell Noah I understand his dreams, I don't try to compete with him. We've both lost people we truly loved, and there's no denying the pain we both feel. Instead, we go through it together.

I think Tris would like Noah. Not the way that I do, but she'd think he was smart. He's reserved, but well spoken when he needs to be and he knows how to cook. He always does the laundry and cleans up after himself and he plays the piano and sometimes even sings to make me laugh.

I wonder what Tris would think about me with Noah. I love him. Not like I loved her, but I'll never love anybody that way. It's not a competition, not a comparison, like it was when I tried to be with other girls. I couldn't look them in the eyes because all I saw was the blue eyes that weren’t her brown ones, a gaze that looked through me instead of into me. 

I met Noah at a support group for those who had lost loved ones after the Abnegation attack. I didn't technically have a reason to be there, but I wanted some closure. I wanted to go for Tris, too. She would have known some of those people, and she would have wanted to heal after the loss of her parents that day. I figured maybe I could do some of that healing for her. But also, there was nowhere for me to go to talk about who I had lost, how I had lost her. That was the closest to a discussion I could get with people who might understand.

Noah and I went out to dinner one night after talking about Tris. He said he knew her and Caleb, and that he knew my father. 

    Noah and I aren't miserable all the time, though. We both have jobs that we like and we go to the lake a lot. We do that because we can get away from the buzz of the city and be silent, but not necessarily sad. After being in the constraints of Chicago’s rules for our entire lives, the three hour drive to an abandoned camp ground- we found it one day when we were bored and just drove and didn’t stop- is like therapy. We sit with nature, away from the noise of a society coming back together and still struggling with the prejudices it used to own. It’s much easier to think when there’s only a river and trees and a boy who loves you but doesn’t push you. 

I think of Tris every day. I know Noah is always thinking of Ethan too. The pain will always be there, but that doesn't have to ruin us. We found each other and it may not have been through ways that we wanted- God knows I’d do anything in the whole world to have saved Tris, or to have taken her place, or even take Ethan’s place so Noah wouldn’t have to suffer - but we’re breathing. We’re alive, and we’re breathing, and we’re loving, and even on the worst days that’s maybe enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was something I never thought I'd need until I came up with it and it just made sense. I've never fully gotten over the tragedy that is the Allegiant ending and this helped me cope a bit so I suppose that's something. :)
> 
> Send me prompts, requests, or just cry with me about fictional characters who deserve better on my Tumblr under the same username!


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